Cinematographer

Movie facts

Running time

MPAA rating

Year released

2016

The Revenant has a lot in common with In the Heart of
the Sea, another recent release, albeit one that quickly ran
aground amid the Star Wars tsunami. Both are well-crafted
survival tales. Both are based on true stories and have their
roots in 1820s American history. And both serve as tales of male
shaming, at least shaming of the modern urban male. Pampered by
things like smart phones (which have morphed into the equivalent
of the good ol’ Swiss army knife), geo-location, Google Maps and
MINI Coopers with butt-warmers, it’s fairly safe to say most men
these days wouldn’t last all that long in the 1820s - whether at
altitude in the Rocky Mountains or on the high seas.

But that’s also part of the visceral fun of watching both The
Revenant and In the Heart of the Sea. They are tales
of survival well worth relishing.

Dangers such as being mauled by a bear certainly have a way of
decreasing life expectancy and in The Revenant, Hugh Glass
(Leonardo DiCaprio, Inception) endures the brutal
experience of not only a vicious grizzly bear attack, but also
being buried alive and left for dead by a shady colleague, John
Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy, Mad Max: Fury Road).

Rising from the grave (and thereby providing the movie’s title),
Hugh exhibits an awesome will to survive – driven by the desire to
exact revenge for the murder of his son at the hands of that same
malevolent fur trader.

Hateful Myth

Even further entwining The Revenant with In the Heart
of the Sea, the very real Hugh Glass was, reportedly, at one
point a sea-faring pirate before he made his way into the wild
frontier of the American West. There, the economy at hand was
driven by the fur trade instead of whale oil. The procurement and
processing of that precious cargo, though, was every bit as
dangerous as whale hunting.

Part of the fascination of this story is its roots in American
mythology. Concrete documentation of Glass is hard to come by, but
Michael Punke mined all the material he could find while crafting
his book The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge, which serves as
the movie’s source material and springboard.

There is the kernel of a story about a man left for dead who
makes his way back to civilization. News reports drifted out
across the country. A legend was born. And embellishments ensued,
such as Hugh having a Pawnee wife and a son.

That family element turns into a hook that takes viewers into a
fresh look at Native Americans and a way of life that has been
trampled by the constant sweep of history. Even so, it’s not fair
to call The Revenant an apologist’s tale. Sure, there’s
the brutality of fur traders invading territory of Arikara and
Sioux tribes, but there’s also an acknowledgment of the brutality
inflicted between tribes.

Bearman

The Revenant is a technically stunning accomplishment
buoyed by another strong, physically demanding performance from
DiCaprio (although his Oscar potential is debatable) as well as
yet another great turn by Hardy, who continues to serve as one of
the great chameleons of onscreen character creation.

Director Alejandro Inarritu, who took home the Oscar for his
wildly creative Birdman, trades in the creature comforts
of Broadway for the shocking, harsh conditions of filming outdoors
(in Argentina and Canada).

Particularly in the movie’s opening action sequences involving
the ambush of a group of fur traders, there’s a constant camera
movement swirling around the carefully staged chaos. From there,
the story goes into some wild, dark territory. Hugh goes through
the wringer: mauled, left for dead, plunging over a waterfall,
leaping off a cliff (on horseback), warming up in the belly of a
horse. It’s all high adventure, the kind where the cozy air
conditioning of modern movie theatres collides with the frigid
imagery on screen.